Sweden Blood Bank Texts Donors To Notify Them Whenever Their Blood Helps Save A Life

In this Tuesday, April 26, 2011 photo a man voluntary donates blood at the National Center for Hematology and Transfusion in Sofia. It's a grim reality for patients and families in Bulgaria, a struggling EU nation where donors are troublingly scarce, hospitals are strapped for funds and blood traders _ mainly Gypsy, or Roma, men _ are thriving. Trading in blood and blood products is illegal in Bulgaria, punishable by a fine of up to euro5,000 ($7,100). But lawyers say it's difficult to prove an illegal blood transaction because that requires an official complaint lodged by the person who pays the donor _ and families are so desperate they consider the black market blood donors lifesavers. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)

Though technology may seem like a lifeline for many people today, for Sweden’s blood bank, it is exactly that.

“We are constantly trying to develop ways to express [donors'] importance,” Karolina Blom Wilberg, a communications manager at the Stockholm blood service, told the news outlet. “We want to give them feedback on their effort, and we find this is a good way to do that.”

Sweden’s text message initiative may just keep these numbers up. In 2013, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine observed the effects of social media on organ donation with a study: “The Facebook Effect: Social Media Dramatically Boosts Organ Donor Registration.” On the day the study began, 57,451 Facebook users shared their organ donor status on their personal profiles. The first day of the program, there were 13,012 new online donor registrations, the study reported.

“If we can harness that excitement in the long term, then we can really start to move the needle on the big picture,” said study leader Andrew M. Cameron, an associate professor of surgery at the university. “The need for donor organs vastly outpaces the available supply and this could be a way to change that equation.”